Malinois Puppies! ... Chilli meets Krash

Chilli’s rendezvous this weekend meant that her chosen mate, Krash (pictured above), had to stay with us for a few days. Krash is a happy boy, outgoing and very affectionate, he greets strangers with a hug and is very well mannered, a pleasure to have around. It’s been nice to spend time with another Malinois and we are grateful to his owners, Lyn & Greg Baile (Kiatasee Kennels), for trusting us with him.

“Krash”, otherwise known as Vanrusselhof Krash, was bred by Amanda Russell at Vanrusselhof Malinois Kennels in Queensland. His father is the famous AUST/DKBR/DK Ch Bryan Vom Haus Mecki IPO3 SchH3 Imp NWY “Bryan” and mother is “Enca” (Vanrusselhof Enca), both of whom I met when I traveled to Queensland 2 years ago and spent some time with Enca at her home with Amanda. I’ve always admired Bryan and followed his many successes with interest. You can read more about both of them at the Vanrusselhof website.

Most of you know our “Chilli”, AUST Ch Vanrusselhof On Fire JD … a pretty, well conformed girl from Show Lines, also with a lovely temperament. This combination (Chilli x Krash) is a great opportunity to combine some of the best working bloodlines and attractive show lines, and we expect some nice puppies suitable for show, agility, obedience, tracking and family companions.

Now … we wait … for about 5 weeks and Chilli will have an ultrasound to confirm that she is pregnant.

All going well puppies will be due on 17th January 2009!

All photo’s on this post are “Krash”
Full pedigree details can be seen on our website: www.westurnborders.com/puppies.htm

Summer Q's and Tickets debut in Masters!

This weekend’s trials, although not quite as successful as last weekend, included a number of personal achievements …

Young Summer ran in two classes, firstly Open Jumping – the level of difficulty way above her ability but we made our own course and she successfully negotiated some of the difficult on-course challenges – it was a positive experience for her. She also ran in Novice Jumping and qualified in 2nd Place for her 2nd Q towards her JD title.

No quallies for Ticket and a number of bars down this weekend … however this was her very first run in Masters Jumping and “wow” I was proud of her (and me). We certainly didn’t make a fool of ourselves and she managed to make it round the course, negotiating most of the difficult sequences successfully, I certainly felt that there is a possibility that we may just have some fun in the masters class!

Our training focus this week has been contacts. Although Ticket’s see-saw still needs proofing her a-frame and dog walk contacts were almost perfect! She held each one until I released her, keeping her there much longer than needed I even had time to slip in a “good girl” while she waited at the contact zone as I sprinted past. That’s an achievement that I was almost ready to give up on a few months ago!

I think it’s been a pretty successful year!

Applause!!!

Applause Ticket … that little girl (above) who I never thought would get off the start line! This weekend we had double jumping and agility trials and what a great weekend of trailling it was. Overall, Ticket came away with three “Q’s”, all 1st Places and two new titles!

Our first run for the weekend was Excellent Jumping – it was fast and clear! “Awesome” I thought, "what a great start to the night!" The rest of our jumping runs unfortunately incurred a fault or two, although not lots of bars down (as we have had in the past), just simple mistakes, so I was still pretty happy with our efforts and really pleased with that first Q as it also completed Tickets' Jumping Dog Excellent (JDX) title … oh scary, that means we’re in Masters now! That will be interesting!

It must have been a weekend for 1st’’s … our first Agility run was also clean and fast, and completed Tickets Agility Dog (AD) Title! It was a lovely run however I did let her off the a-frame contact a little quicker than I should have (bad handler!), so my plan was, in our next run (Open Agility), to hold our contacts - which we did, and she obliged very nicely waiting for my “OK” to release her. Considering the word “stop” is not in Ticket’s vocabulary I think she did extremely well. Both our Open runs were NQ’s but she did very nice contacts (which was my main goal for this weekend) so regardless of our small errors Ticket still got her jackpot to celebrate her efforts. Our last run for the night was another run in Novice Agility – seeing we had already qualified once in this class early in the night (completing her AD title) this was a Q we didn’t need, so I probably handled with a little less apprehension and instead of playing it safe, I pushed Ticket for a bit more speed and raced her thru the course with real determination … Wow! It was the best run we have ever done … just awesome!!! Not one bar tipped, contacts fast, accurate and held until released without doubt and beautiful weaves leading into a tunnel (her favourite excuse to pop the weaves!) … I don’t know if anyone video’d this run but if they did I would love to see it from the outside!

Chilli also ran in novice agility this weekend, missed her weave pole entry both times, but otherwise a very nice effort. Note to self: take Chilli to club training to practice weave poles AWAY from home!

Rocket … little trouper he is … ran in Masters Jumping. His first attempt was a bit of a flop, he resisted jumping a few jumps and knocked a bar (yes, his 2.8kg little body actually managed to knock a bar down!), so I withdrew him and gave him a good massage and off to bed to rest. At present I am unsure if he is sometimes hesitating when jumping because he is hurting or finds it difficult or if he’s just not stimulated by the whole exercise … he did run Masters Jumping again that night, a great little run but missed the second-last jump (I’m still kicking myself) on a long and challenging course!

So the weekend finished with Ticket (above) taking 1st Place for all three “Q’s” … 1st Place overall in AD (twice) and JDX, against all heights and nearly 3 seconds ahead of the 2nd Place in Excellent Jumping!

Golly ... that means we’re in Masters Jumping this weekend!
Stay tuned to see how we go ...